Valerie – Page 80 – Valerie's Voice

Birthday Celebrations

My birthday is in March. I met a friend for dinner last night. We usually walk, but the wind was so strong we decided to have dinner instead and she surprised me with birthday blessings. It was special and we had fun. When I threw a birthday party for myself a few years ago I handed out this quote by Henry J. M. Nouwen:

Celebrating Being Alive

“Birthdays are so important. On our birthdays we celebrate being alive. On our birthdays people can say to us, “Thank you for being!” Birthday presents are signs of our families’ and friends’ joy that we are part of their lives. Little children often look forward to their birthdays for months. Their birthdays are their big days, when they are the center of attention and all their friends come to celebrate.

We should never forget our birthdays or the birthdays of those who are close to us. Birthdays keep us childlike. They remind us that what is important is not what we do or accomplish, not what we have or who we know, but that we are, here and now. On birthdays let us be grateful for the gift of life.”

Retreats, small groups and a movie

Product Details

When I started writing a post for this week my weekend kept getting in the way. It was a rich weekend, filled with many good things; a women’s retreat with inspiring speakers, a Lenten series that began at our church, and seeing a powerful movie, The Shack, about “the deep faith of a man who has lived with evil, struggled with sadness, and comes out on the side of God with an abiding faith in his Savior and friend, Jesus.” There is a lot to process and I have to catch my breath. I will, and hopefully grow and be better for it.

Also, Charlie went back home and I miss him…

Charlie’s Here

We are dog-sitting our “grand-dog” Charlie this weekend, for the first time. He is well-behaved and oh so cute! He follows us around the house and settles in whatever room we are in. He is a good walking partner too.

A Verse from Ash Wednesday’s Service…

…to enter into the Lenten season, from Joel 2

Return to the Lord your God. He is kind and full of Mercy (gracious and compassionate); he is patient and keeps his promise (he is slow anger and abounding in love); he is always ready to forgive and not punish.

Young Quinlan Department Store

After we walked out of Macy’s Department store on Saturday afternoon, we continued down the mall to the majestic, limestone “Renaissance Revival” Young Quinlan building. When looking online for information to use in a previous post I discovered there is a “mini-museum” of Young Quinlan’s memorabilia in the building so we checked it out.

We entered the store, which is now Hudson Jewelers, on 9^th and Nicollet. It’s very beautiful inside, as well as outside, with a wide staircase leading to the mezzanine level that was a part of Young-Quinlan. We rode the elevator with the original “door handle” that I remember was operated by a white-gloved woman back in the day. We got off on the 2^nd floor where there were poster displays and cases filled with photos, boxes and old merchandise. The store opened in this building in 1925, the year it was built, and closed its doors for good in 1985.

My photo didn’t turn out well of this original door handle in the elevator.

Here are excerpts from the displays which we found very interesting.

“Minneapolis in 1894 was still a town on the edge of the prairie with a population of 190,000 people. Nicollet Avenue was lit with gas lamps and paved with red cedar blocks.

Two young and ambitions retailers, Fred D. Young and Elizabeth Quinlan, conceived the daring idea of opening an exclusive store for “ladies’ ready-to-wear.” At the time there was only one other store like that in the country, in New York City.”

“The building was designed by the renowned New York architect Frederick Lee Ackerman. It was built for the then-staggering price of $1.25 million.”

“Opening day drew a crowd of over 20,000 0people for Elizabeth’s “housewarming party.”

“The first day, they sold out of their entire inventory of coats, capes, mantles*, wrappers*, and gloves.”

“With its Old world grace and elegance, it quickly became a landmark in the heart of the city.”

*Mantle: a loose sleeveless garment worn over other clothes. Wrapper: an article of clothing worn wrapped around the body.

A French artist (Rateau) created a symbol for Elizabeth’s Minnesota business. Originally nude, the artist adorned the Lady with pearls to appease Elizabeth so a more modest Lady became Elizabeth Qunilan’s symbol. The plaque of the Lady can be seen on the Ninth & Nicollet Mall corner of the Young Quinlan Building.

I’m thinking I’m missing the old grace and elegance that we no longer find in the department stores in our shopping centers and outlet malls.

Macy’s in Downtown Minneapolis

We spent Saturday afternoon in downtown Minneapolis. It is not a frequent outing for us but my husband suggested we go visit Macy’s before it closes. It was a great idea. I have fond memories of the store. In high school, my girlfriend and I would often take the bus downtown for fun and explore Dayton’s, the name at the time, and ride the elevator to the 12^th floor to use the bathroom which seemed unique and elegant to us. We would have fun looking around on all the floors but not buying anything.

And for a short while I worked downtown Minneapolis and I would go to Dayton’s on my lunch hour so I had some familiarity with the store back then.

Always elegant Dayton’s/Macy’s…first floor.

I do remember buying my first purse at Dayton’s when I was in junior high. It was a navy blue, leather purse on Dayton’s first floor, just off 7^th street entrance. I’m pretty sure I paid $6 for it- which was a lot of money at that time. In my mind I can still see it on display. I have always liked purses so maybe that’s why it stands out in my memory.

On Saturday we parked in the 7^th street ramp, walked trough Macy’s shoe department to the elevators. I wanted to go to the 12^th floor to see the bathroom (I knew we missed eating at the Oak Grille since closed for good a month ago) but I didn’t know the 5-12 floors were closed off for good. So we got off the elevator on the fourth floor where there was a huge “garage sale” of all behind the scenes equipment and props…including those from the flower shows and Christmas displays. Everything was still expensive, even at the sale prices, but it was fun to look around.

These props greeted us as we got off the elevator on Macy’s 4th floor.

I was surprised to see how many people were shopping. We walked around the floors that were open to us and I took a couple of photos inside and out.

Although I never shopped there much I will miss Macy’s (still Dayton’s in my mind)…especially the flower show in the spring and the 8^th floor Christmas display.

“Jacob Marley” from my favorite Christmas story, The Christmas Carol.

The Nicollet Mall is under construction right now so the statue of Mary Tyler Moore was not in its usual place. The mall will never be the same again…hopefully something will move into the beautiful building that has been an anchor in downtown Minneapolis since 1902.

Winter is Back!

On Wednesday I was sitting out on our deck in the bright sunshine and almost 60 degree temperatures, reading a book, hearing birds singing, and no snow in sight. Last night it started to snow… and it continues…you can see the amounts piling up. Although you can’t see the snow flakes falling in the photos, it looks like we are in a snow-globe.

Last Night’s Sunset

Yesterday afternoon’s sky was full of interesting cloud formations and concluded with a beautiful sunset.

February Heat Wave

It was 56 degrees when we went for a walk in St. Olaf’s grasslands on Saturday. The path was a little wet in places but it was great to be out in the open prairie. We sat on a bench for a while to soak up some sunshine. After our hike we went downtown and there were people out everywhere…enjoying this Minnesota winter heat wave. Most of the snow has melted because of several consecutive warm days, and the forecast calls for these temperatures to continue for a few more. Will winter return?

On these nice days I turn down the heat in the house and open windows to let the “sneezes” out! The fresh air smells so good.

I remember last year we had a couple of warm days and we went on a bike ride in February. Is this the new norm?

Valentine’s Day Dinner

Years ago, when our boys were young we started a Valentine’s Day dinner tradition; heart-shaped French Toast. I’d buy a loaf of day-old bread, use a cookie cutter to cut out the heart shapes – saving the crusts to feed the ducks at the pond near by- make French Toast batter to dunk the bread and cook them up.

Then along came electric heart-shaped waffle makers (I have very fond memories of eating heart-shaped waffles at my relative’s homes in Norway.) I bought a waffle maker and switched to heart-shaped waffles for Valentine’s Day dinner, which I continue to make each year even though it’s just the two of us now.

This year, when I was up north at my uncles paging through a magazine, I found Norwegian Waffle recipe that looked good. I wrote down the recipe thinking it might be similar to the recipe they use in Norway. We decided to try it on Valentine’s Day.

In the morning I checked the ingredients and had my husband stop to pick up a couple we didn’t have on hand, and I stopped at the co-op in town to get cardamom ( maybe the secret ingredient??? ) However, I was so excited to try this recipe that I didn’t pay any attention to the quantity it makes until we had already started the batter, and then we decided it was too late to turn back. Well, four cups of milk and four cups of flour, one and a half sticks of butter plus additional ingredients, makes a lot of batter! We could have had the neighborhood over! We laughed.

We decided to make up all the waffles and freeze them…hopefully they’ll be tasty toasted.